9629789 White Social psychological research on persuasive communications generally shows that message quality determines persuasive impact when the message recipient is both motivated and able to process message content. In the absence of either motivation or ability, persuasion is often determined by extra-message factors such as source expertise or source attractiveness, but not typically by message quality. Recent research has shown that White college students who ordinarily would not be motivated to scrutinize a persuasive message nevertheless engage in deeper processing of message content if the source is described as a Black or Hispanic person, or if the message is about members of those ethnic groups. These effects suggest that source or target factors can moderate the likelihood of message elaboration. It is hypothesized that the observed increase in scrutiny of such messages occurs because most people hold ambivalent attitudes toward members of certain ethnic groups other than their own. The proposed research investigateq these effects, focusing on the underlying cognitive processes that produce them and on variables that moderate the effect. A reaction-time procedure, similar to that used in research on stereotyping, will be developed to better understand how people respond to questions about their attitudes and to measure the amount of time people spend reading specific parts of a persuasive communication. %%% Research in social psychology has shown that characteristics of the source of a persuasive communication (such as a person's attractiveness) can influence the persuasive impact, independently of message quality. This is most likely to occur when the recipient of a persuasive communication is either not able or not motivated to scrutinize message content. Recent research has shown that White college students who ordinarily would not be motivated to scrutinize a persuasive message nevertheless do engag e in deeper consideration if the source of the message is described as Black or Hispanic, or if the message is about members of those ethnic groups. It is hypothesized that the observed increase in students' scrutiny of such messages occurs because of ambivalent attitudes held toward members of certain ethnic groups. The proposed research investigates these effects, focusing on the underlying cognitive processes that produce them and on variables that increase or decrease the effect. A reaction-time procedure, similar to that used in research on stereotyping, will be developed to better understand how people respond to questions about their attitudes and to measure the amount of time people spend reading specific parts of a persuasive communication. The research has the potential to shed new light on how different ethnic groups respond to each other, ultimately contributing to theory and research on intergroup relations. ***
